post-pandemic<\/a> bounce back. The borough recorded $33 and $34 billion in sales, respectively. But as mortgage rates rose and dealmaking slowed, transaction volume fell much faster than the number of licensed agents, leaving more brokers chasing fewer opportunities.<\/p>\nSubscribe to TRD Data to unlock this content<\/p>\n
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\u201cYou have a situation with a little less deal flow, so it makes it hypercompetitive,\u201d said Compass broker Jason Haber. \u201cAgents have to know their value and their value proposition to clients more so than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
While NAR membership surged during the pandemic boom before retreating, New York City\u2019s agent population remained largely flat through much of the cycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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RELNY Real Estate licensing instructor Kristen Bacorn attributed NYC\u2019s divergence from the rest of the nation to the significant migration, causing a \u201cunique strain\u201d on Manhattan real estate and new agents looking to break into the industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no idea what would happen in the real estate market or if residents would return,\u201d said Bacron. \u201cPeople didn\u2019t want to jump into an uncertain market.\u201d<\/p>\n
But uncertainty led to resiliency in the city. Though agents headcounts never saw a boom, they also never saw a significant drop off. Ease in maintaining a license played a part, according to Bacorn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want to keep your license, all you have to do is take a few classes online and pay a fee,\u201d said Bacorn. \u201cIt\u2019s more convenient to hold on to it than to let it go and come back a decade later.\u201d<\/p>\n
Between 2024 and 2025, the number of licensed agents in the city fell from 22,706 to 21,987, the second largest annual decline in the period analyzed by TRD Data.<\/p>\n
The drop suggests some brokers are finally leaving an industry that remained unusually crowded throughout much of the downturn.<\/p>\n
\u201cAffordability is a driver of a lot of decision making,\u201d said Haber. \u201cYou may have agents who just aren\u2019t able to earn enough based on what they\u2019re making now, and what would have cut it a few years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jun 18, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC Competition heightened as borough agent population stayed crowded Jun 18, 2026, 4:02…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,104496,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-270991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-agent-population","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}